


Your girl's got red in her cheeks, cause we're something she can't see

by msinformed13



Category: Glee
Genre: Acceptance, Alternate Universe - College/University, College, F/F, Fluff and Angst, Found Family, M/M, Mentions of past abuse, Minor Blaine Anderson/Kurt Hummel, Minor Santana Lopez/Brittany S. Pierce, Unique perspective, some graphic description of scars, told by kurt's pov
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-22
Updated: 2018-01-22
Packaged: 2019-03-08 08:17:00
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 7,752
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13454163
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/msinformed13/pseuds/msinformed13
Summary: {The woman smiles at Kurt, her impossibly bright hazel eyes skim up and down as a slow smile crawls across her face. Kurt is very sure of his sexuality (has been since he tried to steal his mother's high heeled shoes in the third grade), but for just a half second, he questions himself.} Faberry College AU told through Kurt's pov. Repost from FFN





	1. Chapter 1

White sheets, bright lights, crooked teeth, and the night life.  
You told me this is right where it begins.  
But your lips hang heavy underneath me.  
And I promised myself I wouldn't let you complete me.

\- 'Is There Somewhere', Halsey

* * *

Kurt is a freshman in college, after months of applications and tough deliberation, he's picked the perfect ivy league on the East coast, and packed his bags as soon as he could. Now, school is starting, and he's ready to make himself a new life here.

He hefts his suitcase through the entryway of his new dorm, marveling in the century old building he will be living in for the next year. His father is outside wrangling the rest of his luggage while he gets the key and finds his room.

In the entryway is a long wood table with a few students milling about in bright blue t shirts. Kurt shakes his short hair out, squares his shoulders, and marches with all the confidence possible towards the table. As he draws near, he is halted in his tracks when a tall blonde turns around.

The woman smiles at Kurt, her impossibly bright hazel eyes skim up and down the boy in seconds as a slow smile crawls across her face. Kurt is very sure of his sexuality (has been since he tried to steal his mother's high heeled shoes in the third grade- not that he's had the confidence to do anything about it yet), but for just a half second, he questions himself.

"First year?" The woman asks. Her voice is deep and husky, and rolls down Kurt's spine deliciously.

"Yeah." Kurt hardly manages to breathe out.

"What's your name?"

"Kurt Hummel."

The woman turns her back on Kurt once more, giving the brunette an opportunity to get a grip over himself, "Hummel, Hummel." The woman mutters, fingering through a box on the table before coming up triumphantly after a moment, "Kurt Hummel! Fifth floor, room 432."

She hands Kurt over a yellow envelope containing his key, "Your RA is Santana."

The blonde says, looking over her shoulder to point out the other woman before stopping short to shoot a quick glare at a tall Latina sitting on the heavy wooden bench with her feet thrown up on the table. She has headphones in and is typing intently on her cellphone.

"Lopez!" The blonde calls, smacking the Latina's sandalled feet.

The woman shoots upright with a glare, pulling her earbuds out, "The fuck has your panties in a twist, Q-ball?"

Kurt watches the interaction with interest. The blonde narrows her eyes, "This is Kurt, he's one of the first years on your floor, maybe you want to go show him up?"  
"Whatever you say Madam President." The brunette- Santana- shoots of a weak two fingered salute before sauntering away down the hall. Kurt follows to the elevator where Santana stabs the button and waits impatiently.

Santana taps her foot while they wait, Kurt decides to test his RA, "So, you're a junior?"

"Senior."

"Right."

The rest of the ride up to the fifth floor is quiet as Santana sizes up Kurt. She seems to come to some sort of conclusion when she nods and faces forwards again. When they arrive, Kurt follows Santana out of the elevator, stopping at the third room.

"Well, this is you. I'm right across the hall." Santana points at a wooden door decorated minimalistically with a sign reading, 'Where be that bitch?' on the cork board with the options to inform the public of 'that bitch' being either 'home, away, asleep, or the fuck out of here'.

"Your room is an awkward space so you'll probably have to rearrange the furniture. If you need me, I'll be downstairs. Try not to need me."

On that note, Kurt begins the process of setting up his dorm room.

…

That day, Kurt finds out just how fiery his RA is when she huffs her way through greeting the rest of her residents, goodness only knows how she got her job in the first place. On one of Kurt's final trips, he was struggling to get a large trunk into the elevator when a shorter brunette popped seemingly out of midair.

The shorter woman was wearing a bright blue shirt that let Kurt know she was a student leader helping with orientation, "Need a hand?" She asks brightly, not waiting for a reply before she grabs one end of the trunk from Kurt, and helping him pivot the large case into the elevator.

"Thanks." Kurt says as he presses the button for the fifth floor.

"It's nothing." The woman dismisses, "I'm Rachel by the way!"

Kurt smiles and introduces himself before asking, "Are you an RA in this building?"

"Oh, no." Rachel gets the smallest smirk before explaining, "I was just coming over to visit Green Hall. I actually live just across the quad in Adams Tower, I'm the RA of their third floor."

The elevator dings and lets the women out, Rachel takes her end of the trunk and leads the way down the hall, "Which one is yours?"

"Just here." Kurt inclines his head. Rachel pauses and together, they manage to shove the trunk through the doorway. From there, the older brunette excuses herself, and Kurt finishes arranging some things before heading downstairs to say goodbye.

He hugs his father. Their relationship has never been easy especially since his mother died, but Kurt swears he sees his father's eyes shining with tears when he claps him on his back and tells him to make him proud. It's all Kurt's been trying to do ever since he knew how, it's why he is still barricading himself in the closet as deeply as he can- he can't disappoint his father.

When Kurt walks back through the door of Green Hall, he sees Santana with her feet thrown up on the table once again, though the beautiful blonde seems not to notice as she's absorbed in a conversation with Rachel.

…

It takes a full day for Kurt to learn the blonde's name.

It's the first all hall meeting, and Kurt is squished on a couch between a girl in the room next to his named Mercedes, and a stuttering girl named Tina.

All of the freshmen and the student leaders are sitting in a circle in the living room of Green Hall, everyone waiting for something. That something arrives in a flurry of blonde hair and a deep, raspy voice, "I'm so sorry to keep you all waiting."

The woman falls gracefully into a chair just across the circle from Kurt. She brushes her hair off her face, and instantly composes herself, "My name is Quinn Fabray, and I am the house president of Green Hall this year."

Kurt didn't hear anything further as he was lost in the perfection of the slope of Quinn's neck. It figured that the flawless woman would have such an elegant name.

…

Kurt lives on the fifth floor of his building. It's the room closest to the stairs, it's got a small bathroom next to it with one stall, and way at the other end of the floor is the larger one and a kitchen.

The first week Kurt walks all the way down the hall to try and get hot water for his tea, only to find the hot water tap is broken. From that evening on, he learns to go down to the fourth floor and get hot water from them. As such, every night, Kurt walks past Quinn's room on his way down to get water for his tea. Most nights the president's door is shut firmly. Except for the one night it's cracked the tiniest bit.

Kurt can feel the heat radiating out from the single room when he's still a few paces away, not to mention he can hear the loud tell tale sign of a room being filled to the brim with college students. Kurt steps into the kitchen to fill his mug, and when he emerges, his eyes lock onto a certain blonde.

Quinn is leaning against the wall opposite her door, her hair is in a messy pony tail, the sides slicked down slightly with sweat, she is holding a red solo cup in one hand and fanning herself off with the other.

She smiles kindly at Kurt, "How's your first week been treating you?"

"Pretty well, I think I've finally gotten the hang of getting around campus." He doesn't know what it is, but something about the blonde just puts him at ease. He can breathe in her presence without being afraid of saying something wrong.

Quinn nods, "That was a struggle when I first came here too." She opens her mouth to say something further, but she is cut off by the door to her room bursting open and Santana poking her head out. Kurt shouldn't be too surprised seeing as he passed his RA's door on the way down and saw the pin announcing she was 'away'.

"There you are, bitch. I thought you'd gone missing!"

Quinn rolls her eyes, "Like I would leave you brats alone in my room."

The Latina flips Quinn the bird before turning to the mass of people in the dorm room, and raising her red cup high in the air, "A toast, to our president!" She announces with a haughty smirk.

The student's packed in the dorm room echos 'to our president' and Quinn rolls her eyes.

"Only like five of them actually live in this building, you realize that right?"

Santana merely shrugs, "Semantics. Your ball and chain is looking for you."

What comes out of Quinn's mouth next keeps Kurt up practically all night gossiping with his neighbor Mercedes while he recounts the blonde's exact words over and over.

"How many times have I told you not to call her that." Quinn sighs exasperatedly.

Her.

The word catches in Kurt's brain and he is initially convinced it must have been a mistake, he heard wrong and Quinn really told Santana not to call 'him' that because Quinn must have a boyfriend, not a girlfriend.

Quinn is beautiful and perfect, she's on student government, she's in charge of the residence hall, she's well liked and successful, she can't be gay. Can she? He has no frame of reference for this, the only out people he's come across are the outcasts from high school.

He is so caught up on trying to convince himself of this that he misses the next words exchanged between the two women, and only snaps back to reality when he sees Rachel pulling Quinn back into the packed room. Quinn waves over her shoulder at Kurt one last time before disappearing into the mass of bodies. The door swings shut, caught cracked open slightly by a sideways doorstop against the jamb.


	2. Chapter 2

"That's what it feels like when you touch me. Like millions of tiny universes being born and then dying in the space between your finger and my skin. Sometimes I forget."  
― Iain Thomas, I Wrote This For You

...

"We just have to gather some intel."

"What kind of intel?" Kurt asks incredulously. It's late on a Thursday evening, and he's in the common room of his dorm trying to study with Mercedes, but she seems much more interested in the question of Quinn's sexuality.

"We need to get in there."

"In where?" He is exasperated, for the past couple hours, all he's heard have been vague plots from Mercedes who seems intent on keeping the freshman gossip mill going.

"I don't know, but right now we're on the outside, we need to get in."  
"Why are you so focused on this?" Kurt asks, shooting a furtive glance around to make sure nobody is listening in.

"I could ask you the same question."

Kurt blushes brightly, he knows she could, and he loves her for not.

Suddenly, Mercede's eyes light up and she's got a smirk, "Follow my lead and act cool."

"What? Where are you-"

But the girl is already up, expecting Kurt to follow. They join a group of freshmen standing near a table talking, as they draw close, Kurt sees Quinn is seated at the table next to Santana, both are working at their laptops, casually participating in the conversation.

Kurt hears the tail end of whatever Tina has just said, "-I definitely want to live in this hall next year, it's the closest to the science buildings."

"Me too." Mercedes agrees, "I just wish I knew what more of the upperclassmen singles looked like. Especially if they have a good view of campus." She trails off just as Quinn shuts her laptop with a tired huff.

The blonde pushes some hair behind her ear, "My room overlooks the main green, do you want to see it?"

"That would be so cool, you're not too busy?" Mercedes asks sweetly. Kurt cannot believe how she is pulling this off.

"Yeah, I need a break." Quinn stands from the table, tucking her cellphone into the pocket of her jeans. She shoots one look at Santana over her shoulder, "Don't pull another one of your pranks on my computer."

"I have no idea what you're talking about." Santana deadpans.

Quinn rolls her eyes and leads the group up the stairs and down the hall. Her door is totally decorated with notes, photos, tickets, handmade small signs, and much to Mercedes' excitement, a small rainbow flag. She looks between the flag and Kurt with raised eyebrows, but he shakes his head back at her.

A flag could mean anything. Quinn's made it clear that her room is a safe space if any of her residents ever needs something, she rarely locks her door.

The inside of the room is spacious and relatively neat, her walls are decorated with everything she must have accumulated over the past years in college, and Kurt, Mercedes, Tina, and Mike look around. Kurt's eyes land on a small silver pitch pipe, he recognizes it from years of choir, "Do you sing?" He asks.

Quinn's features soften as she sees the little circle on her dresser, "No, it's my girlfriend's."

Later that evening, in the safety of Mercedes' room, Kurt still insists that Quinn might not be gay. Girlfriend could be an ambiguous term referring to a friend who is a girl- not a significant other. Mercedes cannot believe Kurt's reluctance to admitting what seems obvious, then again, maybe she can believe it.

…

Kurt hates carbs. Well, that's a lie. He loves carbs, but hates that the ones presented in dining halls are all deep fried, coated in cheese, or rubbery and overcooked. As such, his diet has turned into something loosely vegetarian, and highly picky.

It's Sunday brunch and his plate is full of fruit, a piece of toast, and a questionable looking 'omelette'. Mercedes and Tina are engaged in a hot argument over the relative merits of glossy versus matte finish on dark purple nail polish. Kurt tunes them out and scans a gaze around the dining hall.

It's ten thirty- which for a weekend is still relatively early- so it's not too crowded, but it's not empty either. He amuses himself watching the other students milling about in various states of pajama wear.

His eyes catch on a familiar mane of blonde hair. Though at the moment it's significantly more tousled than he's used to seeing it. Quinn is carrying a mug of coffee, and a plate with only a bagel and some fruit, she's wearing sweats and a tank top that shows off her biceps.

He can't help but stare, she's so lovely, and she moves with grace that should not be allowed this early when he knows she's got to be horribly hung over (he heard the party in her room last night). But even through that, she looks incredibly young with her thick framed dark glasses he's never seen on her before.

Kurt watches her make her way across the dining hall to a packed round table in the corner. He recognizes Santana and Rachel as well as a few others he's seen around campus. Quinn drops ungracefully into the empty seat beside Rachel and plops her plate down in front of her. She props her foot up on a rung of Rachel's chair so her knee is against Rachel's thigh.

He doesn't say anything to alert Mercedes, but he stares as Rachel easily steals some of the fruit off of Quinn's plate. The blonde smiles and shakes her head before getting swept into a conversation with Santana. Her fingers find their way into the hair at the base of Rachel's head, from across the dining hall, Kurt can see the way she's unconsciously massaging the area with gentle strokes. Rachel leans into the touch, and drops a hand of her own onto Quinn's thigh.

He knows those touches, they're the simple gestures of two people so in tune to each other. Even though they aren't talking to each other, they're the small touches to let the other know they're still there. He's never seen those touches with anybody aside from with his parents when his mother was still alive.

It's all he's ever wanted, but it's something he's never expected he could get from another boy.


	3. Chapter 3

"I would meet you now

and I would wish this scar

to have been given with

all the love

that never occurred between us."

\- Micheal Ondaatje, 'The Time Around Scars'

* * *

Kurt does his laundry every Tuesday at one in the afternoon. It's usually empty down in the basement seeing as it's the middle of the day, but that's how he likes it. He always uses washer number one, and dryer number six because they're right across from each other and close to the pay machine so it's easy.

Except for the Tuesday halfway through his first semester. He lugs his laundry down five flights of stairs (the elevator is useless) and is only panting slightly when he sees his favorite washer is already spinning.

He goes to the one next to it and begins unloading his clothes, one of his socks drops behind it, and he is crouching down out of sight to get it when he hears footsteps on the stairs. The new occupant of the laundry room must not see him until he pops up and hears a surprised 'Kurt!'

He freezes as he takes in the sight in front of him. Quinn Fabray is standing in the middle of the laundry room with a handful of socks halfway into the washer.

In a sports bra.

Quinn is half naked in the middle of the laundry room.

She drops the socks in the washer and tries to suppress a blush, "I spilled coffee on my tank top." She says to explain the shirtlessness.

"That sucks."

"Mhm."

Kurt does his very best not to stare, but the violence written on Quinn's pale skin is undeniable. A thick pink rope of a scar snakes it's way up the left side of Quinn's abdomen. The blonde shakes some hair out of her face and continuing on with her laundry.

Kurt tries to wrench his eyes away from the woman in front of him, but he can't. The blonde is slim and her stomach is incredibly toned, his eyes zero in on a black line just beneath her sports bra. Initially, he had missed it because it blended in with the undergarment, and because he was too fixated on the scar, but now there's no denying that there's a line of cursive ink on Quinn's ribs.

She has to catch him staring, because she smirks a little bit, "I was t-boned by a truck when I was eighteen."

"I'm sorry." He says instinctively.

"Don't be." She smiles at him, "I got the tattoo when I was released from the hospital, it's a Vonnegut quote."

She moves to the washer next to Kurt's and begins pulling out various clothes to toss in the dryer. Kurt continues about his own laundry until his eyes catch on a bright pink t-shirt he knows he recognizes from somewhere.

He is drawn from this however, when he sees Quinn turn, standing on tiptoes to reach the tall dryer. Her shoulders are flexing, and Kurt almost gasps because the scars littering her back, and they are most definitely not just from a car accident. He's never seen anything like this, except that photograph from his history textbook, the famous one titled 'The Scourged Back'.

She is marked in a way Kurt never expected her to be. Quinn is supposed to be perfect, she's supposed to be the untouched image of what he could be. But she isn't, and for some reason that reassures Kurt. Because nobody should be perfect.

When she turns back around, Kurt doesn't have enough time to avert his eyes and Quinn catches his gaze, "The bumpy ones are from a belt buckle, the smooth ones from the other side." Quinn says offhandedly like she's not talking about what must have been years of abuse.

Kurt's mouth gapes open slightly, "Why?" He can't help it tumbling out.

Quinn doesn't seem to mind, she merely lifts the corner of her lips in a ghost of a smile, "Is there ever a valid reason?" She asks mainly to herself. Before Kurt can say anything else, Quinn is gathering the last of her laundry, pulling a clean shirt over her head, "The night I got the tattoo, when I was released from the hospital after nearly dying from a car accident, I went home to Santana's house."

Kurt wants to say something, but he has never learned words for this.

"I had been kicked out of my own house a few months earlier because my father walked in on me and my girlfriend at the time. He didn't hit me then, but it was probably because it was the most sober he had been in years."

Quinn finishes with her laundry and looks Kurt squarely in the eyes, "If you ever need anything," she stresses 'anything' looking at Kurt with a raw honesty he's never seen before, "my door is always open."

With that, she turns on her heel and leaves the laundry room, hefting a bag over her shoulder. It hits her in the back as she walks away like the scars don't hurt anymore, maybe they don't.

It doesn't strike him until later that day when he's folding his shirts where he's seen that pink shirt before. It's from a Glee club competition (he owns the same shirt from attending the competition in his freshman year of high school) and he saw Rachel wearing it two weeks ago. He remembers the conversation he had with Rachel when he saw her wearing it and realized that he had watched her club perform at nationals all those years ago.

* * *

**A/N-Sidenote- this is not to glorify scars or abuse.**

**I promise the next one is going to be fluffy and cute.**


	4. Chapter 4

"Why do you want to be on The Real World?  
-Because I want everyone to witness my youth

Why?  
-Isn't it gorgeous?"  
― Dave Eggers, A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius

* * *

Kurt didn't often spend time in different dorm buildings, most of his friends lived in Green Hall with him. But tonight is Friday and he's been dragged to Adams Tower for a movie night with Mercedes' new friend Artie. They're halfway through Pulp Fiction when Kurt excuses himself for a bathroom break.

He wanders around the third floor for a little while until he stumbles upon Rachel's dorm room. Her door is shut, though the pin in her corkboard indicates that she's 'Home'. The rest of her door is decorated with little glow in the dark stick on stars that make Kurt smile.

He recognized posters for various college productions that Rachel's been a part of on her cork board, and he thought about the upcoming auditions for A Midsummer Night's dream he was preparing for. Rachel was auditioning too and she had given him some tips of what this student director was looking for.

He was winding his way back towards Artie's room when he saw someone emerge from the bathroom. The woman was wrapped in a towel, another one around her head, and Kurt couldn't help but stop dead. What was Quinn Fabray doing post shower in Green Hall? She saw Kurt staring at her from the other side of the hallway and tried to look as casual as possible.

"Hey, Kurt."

"Quinn." He nodded cordially, doing everything in his power to keep from smirking. He crossed his arms and leant against the wall, just waiting to see where Quinn would go from here.

The blonde shuffled her flip flop clad feet for a moment, before nodding her head curtly, "Good talk." She said, blushing and walking down the hall to Rachel's room. He watched her open the door and slide inside. Once the wood clicked shut behind her, he let out the chuckle he had been holding onto.

"Cannot believe her." He muttered under his breath.

"Talking to yourself is a sign of insanity." A voice from just behind him teased.

Kurt jumped, turning to see a smiling Rachel. Her face was flushed and water droplets clung to her bare shoulders, she was wrapped in a towel fresh out of the shower.

"Rachel." He squeaked.

"Are you alright?" She asked, suddenly concerned as Kurt's face grew pink, "You look feverish." She said holding the back of her hand against the boy's forehead.

He froze under the touch, of course Rachel was the overprotective mothering type, "I'm fine, just tired." He lied, trying very hard not to think about how Rachel and Quinn were very likely just violating the two foot rule of dorm showers (only two feet per stall at a time).

"Ok, if you need anything, I'm just down the hall."

Kurt nodded, watching Rachel go into her room. He let out a breath he didn't realize he had been holding, those two would be the death of him.

…

He didn't yet know how true that was. It was around a month later, and finals period was just beginning. Naturally Quinn had thrown a party (or as Kurt had later learned, Santana had decided to throw a party and had overtaken Quinn's room because it was larger and as an RA she wasn't allowed to have alcohol visible in her room). Kurt had been invited because he had gotten into the play with Rachel, and the brunette had invited the whole cast.

He wasn't planning on going, he really wasn't, until he learned that the cute sophomore Blaine Anderson who was also on the cast was going. So he became one of those faceless people he had so often seen streaming up the stairs to Quinn's room. The inside of the party was exactly what he had expected it to be, hot sweaty, close, and tightly packed. He learned that Quinn had a balcony of sorts. Well not really a balcony so much as her window opened onto a small section of roof and people were consistently climbing in and out to smoke or get fresh air.

Kurt was talking closely with Blaine in a corner, their heads bent together when he nodded towards the window, "Want to get some air?"

"Yeah." Kurt smiled widely. They moved towards the window, Blaine standing aside for Kurt to climb through first, but when the younger boy brought his foot up to step through, he stumbled into a tall Latina.

Santana whipped around with her eyebrow arched high, "You alright there twinkle toes?"

Kurt giggled, like actually giggled because maybe he had a little too much to drink, and maybe his cheeks were a little flushed, and maybe he wasn't exactly steady on his own feet, but he leaned in far closer than he normally would to Santana's ear and whispered very loudly, "Blaine and I are getting some air together."

Santana shot an appraising look at Blaine. She recognized him from the theater productions Quinn dragged her to over the past years.

"Do you need anything?" Santana asked, lowering her voice so only Kurt could hear.

Kurt laughed, Santana was concerned for him.

"No I'm not, I'm just doing my job." Santana glared, shit he had said that out loud.

But the look on her face made it clear, she did care. She looked into his cup, and turned around, grabbing a water bottle from off the table, "Drink this." She commanded, taking his cup from him.

"Fine." Kurt huffed, unscrewing the cap of the water bottle.

Santana looked again at Blaine, apparently finding him harmless enough because she said, "How about you get some air in the hallway? You can't fall off anything out there."

Blaine nodded, "Good idea." He held out his hand for Kurt to take, and led him through the tightly packed bodies into the hall.

They leaned against the wall, talking closely for a few minutes until another couple spilled from the room. The two were pressed together from head to toe, locked together at the lips, they landed on the wall near the door across from Kurt and Blaine.

The boys stopped their talking, both watching the scene unfolding before them. The two women making out against the wall were entirely oblivious to anything around them, Kurt saw the brunette slip a thigh between the blonde's legs and rake her hands up the taller woman's back, dragging her shirt along with it.

There was no missing that it was Quinn and Rachel.

The boys were drawn out of their stunned watching when Rachel tore her mouth away from Quinn's to breathily say into her ear, "The things I would do to you if your room wasn't full of people right now."

"Can we go to yours?"

"It's so far."

"Santana's?"

"You remember what she said last time we did that." Rachel chastised.

Blaine's eyes bugged slightly at the knowledge that Quinn and Rachel had indeed defiled Santana's room in the past. He choked on air, and Quinn's head whipped around, a deep blush rising on her cheeks.

Rachel just laughed at her girlfriend's deer in the headlights expression. She took Quinn's hand and tugged her towards the stairs, "If Santana asks, you never saw us." Rachel winked at Kurt and Blaine, leaving the boys standing frozen in the hallway.

"So that happened." Blaine eventually said.

"Yeah."

"They're totally going to have sex in Santana's room, aren't they?"

"Yeah."

The boys looked at each other, and broke down into a fit of laughter. Blaine put his hand on Kurt's arm to steady himself as they laughed, he left it there even after they stopped.


	5. Chapter 5

It was around a week later, nearly Christmas break and he's just barely booked a ticket back home when he realizes he's got no way to get to the airport that early in the morning. He is complaining about this to Mercedes in the living room of Adams Tower when a loud voice interrupts his ranting.

"Oye, twinkle toes, how early do you need to be at the airport?"

Kurt jumped in his seat at the voice, but whirled around to see Santana with a blonde he had seen around campus cuddled on her lap. The two were sitting in a window seat, the blonde had a book in her lap, though it was clear neither of them were reading it.

"Around five to get through security." He replied.

"I'll drive you. We're leaving at four, don't be late."

"Thanks."

"Don't mention it."

The way Santana growled the last bit made it sound more like a threat than an acknowledgement of someone's gratitude.

Kurt was exactly on time outside the building when he saw what must be Santana's car careen around the corner. He could see his breath frosting in the air. The driver's side door opened, and a highly bundled Santana hopped out to help fit Kurt's suitcase in the trunk. She wedged it in next to three others, and Kurt wondered who else he would be riding with.

His question was answered quickly enough when he opened the back door and slid in next to Rachel. She was in the center of the backseat, half in Quinn's lap on the other side, a the blonde he had seen cuddling with Santana was up front.

"Sorry it's a bit of a tight squeeze back there." Santana apologized, turning the corner to exit campus sharply, throwing Kurt's shoulder into Rachel.

The wicked grin Kurt could see on Santana's face in the rearview mirror convinced him otherwise.

The ride was relatively quiet until suddenly Rachel perked up, "I forgot my boots!"

"You're wearing them, Rach." Quinn replied.

"No, I mean my snow boots."

"There's no way they would have fit in the suitcase."

"Only because you insisted on packing those extra sweaters."

Quinn flushed slightly, "I couldn't pick just one."

Rachel's features softened and she smiled gently at Quinn, "You don't have to worry about looking good for my fathers, you know they love you."

They smiled sweetly at each other until Santana made a fake retching sound from the front seat, "Oh, I'm sorry. I just barfed a tiny bit."

Quinn rolled her eyes and reached across to smack Santana upside the head. Kurt just watched the whole interaction with a grin. So Rachel and Quinn had packed one suitcase together to go visit Rachel's fathers.

It would make sense that Quinn wasn't going back to visit her own family, but it still saddened Kurt to know the blonde's home life wasn't so picturesque.

…

Kurt's first year was too good to be true until it wasn't. Blaine asked him out officially pretty soon after winter break, and they dated for the remainder of the year. Kurt got close to Rachel and Quinn, they were his role models really, though he would blush deep red if anyone were to accuse him of such.

He was a part of the University musical production, and was voted onto the Thespian board. In early April, Rachel organized a night out for the cast of the final play of the Spring semester, and accordingly, Kurt was standing at a table in a packed nightclub.

Rachel and Brittany had just come back to the table laden down with shots. The alcohol was distributed, and Kurt took a quick whiff of the drink- tequila- of course that's what Rachel would have ordered for everyone.

The brunette singer made a quick speech about how great their performances had gone, how honored she had been to be a part of the cast, and how she was looking forward to next year. Kurt and Blaine shared a little smirk when Quinn put a steadying hand on Rachel's lower back as she finished her speech and everyone squished around the table raised their shots and downed them together.

Kurt only winced a little before dropping his empty glass next to Blaine's, the older boy laughed, "You're certainly learning to handle your liquor."

"Watch out, one day I'll even be able to outdrink Santana."

"Don't count on that one, Tiger." Blaine teased.

Kurt laughed along with him, but grabbed his boyfriend's hand, "Let's dance!"

Blaine let Kurt drag him out onto the dance floor. It was packed with bodies, and Kurt lost himself in the wonder of being just one of a mob of twenty-somethings throwing their responsibilities to the wind; ignoring their shitty minimum wage jobs, their dead end studies; all trying to get laid or hammered or any number of other things.

None of it mattered. They were faceless. They were beautiful. They were nobody, and they were everybody.

Kurt let Blaine grab his hips and turn him around, they danced back to front, Kurt dropped his head back onto Blaine's shoulder. This was freedom. This was something he'd only seen from drunk co-eds or Quinn and Rachel, Santana and Brittany, he was one of them now, and he was free.

He was jostled from his bliss when a tall man bumped into Blaine. The man turned to apologize, but froze with "Sorry man-" out of his mouth before the sympathetic expression became one of anger, "Damn fags."

Kurt stood up properly, noticing the way Blaine was protectively in front of him, "I don't want a problem here, but you had better apologize to my boyfriend and I."

The tall man laughed, but it was cut short when a tan fist connected with his jaw. Kurt whipped around as quickly as his tipsy state would allow to see Santana with her hand back, ready for a second strike if necessary, a scowl pulling her lips tight. Quinn was right behind her with a similar expression and stance.

"I think he asked you to apologize." Santana growled.

The man's expression was still grimm, "I don't apologize to people like him."

"You mean people like us." Was all Santana said before she was upon him. She landed another punch to his jaw before attempting a sloppy approximation of an uppercut to his torso. It was then that Kurt realized a drunk Santana maybe wasn't the best person to be fighting right now. But Quinn was there too, trying her very best not to fall over when she kicked out at the man, hitting him where it would hurt.

Less than ten minutes later, the six of them were squished into Brittany's SUV (she was their designated driver). They had been thrown out of the club, and had their photos taken for future banning. The rest of the cast was on their way back to campus too, in cabs and separate cars, everyone abuzz with the events of the evening.

Blaine was sitting shotgun as Brittany had banished Santana to the backseat (she was a distraction). Kurt watched Rachel cooing over Quinn's bruising knuckles before turning his attention to the plastered Latina next to him. Her face was flat against the window and she was humming along off key to the song on the radio.

"Thank you." Kurt said.

"You don't need to thank me."

"Because it's your job?" He teased, remembering the line she had used the first time she stuck up for him when she tried to protect him from Blaine.

"Because you should never be afraid of being who you are." She replied in a surprisingly sober tone, looking deeply at Kurt to convey all the feelings she wouldn't even say drunk.

"Thank you."

Santana shrugged, "Any time twinkletoes." From Kurt's other side, he heard Quinn hiccup pitifully in her hammered state, "Plus it was worth it to see Mike Tyson over there try and get in on the action." Santana laughed, teasing Quinn.

"I totally kicked that guy's ass." Quinn declared.

"Sure you did, Q-Ball."

"I kicked his ass." Quinn muttered tragically, she then turned to Rachel next to her, "Right?"

Kurt did his very best not to laugh when Rachel nodded, "Of course you did, baby." She pressed a kiss into Quinn's hair.

Kurt did laugh at that point when Quinn's sad pout turned into the most tragically adorable puppydog eyes she used on Rachel. He was still drunk, Quinn and Santana tried to beat up a neanderthal for him, his boyfriend was singing along to the radio with Brittany, and in this car, everything was perfect.


	6. Chapter 6

"He likes driving very fast on the wrong side of the road," said Sarah. "Which I can completely understand."  
― Hilary McKay, Saffy's Angel

* * *

It was summer, and Kurt was doing his very best to get tanned without getting burned, but he knew he was failing. He was sitting under a tree on the lawn of the University, watching the Summer Festival happening around him. He was two weeks into his sophomore year of college and he was loving every minute.

The Thespian society had set up a booth like most other clubs, trying to pad their bank account to make up for the lack of funding the school gave them. He was pulled from his thoughts by a hand on his shoulder, "You're up!"

He nodded, and went to relieve Blaine of duty. The Thespian society had decided to go with a kissing booth this year after raking in a great profit from a similar fundraiser last year. He swapped out with Blaine just as Rachel was swapping out with a blonde junior named Aubrey.

Soon enough two lines began forming to pay 2 bucks to kiss either actor. Kurt had locked lips with two giggling freshman girls when he spotted a familiar blonde.

Quinn smirked as she stepped up to the table in front of Rachel and placed a twenty down, "How many kisses will that get me?"

The brunette laughed and shook her head, "You could just wait half an hour until my shift is over, then you won't have to pay anything."

"Then I have to spend half an hour watching other people get to kiss you." Quinn replied with a small pout.

Rachel rolled her eyes, but wrapped her hand around the back of Quinn's neck to pull her in close. She kissed the blonde deeply, and Kurt blushed just watching them. When Rachel pulled back, Quinn still had her eyes closed her mouth slightly open in satisfaction.

Rachel put the money in the collection jar before smirking, "Next."

Quinn's eyes popped open, "Excuse me?"

"You're holding up the line."

"Rachel." Quinn whined tragically.

"I'll only be here for a little while longer." Rachel replied, "Now shoo."

The blonde frowned but did as her girlfriend told her, scooting around to the side of the table. She talked with some of the members of the Thespian society while Rachel continued working the booth. When a particularly sketchy boy with curly brown hair let his hands wander onto Rachel's hips when he kissed her, Quinn practically growled at him.

Rachel chastised her for scaring away potential customers.

Quinn relented and spent the rest of the time talking to Kurt. His line was totally gone, Rachel being the runaway hit of the kissing booth with a minimum of five people waiting at any one time to kiss her.

"How was your summer?"

"Great." Kurt smiled, watching the way Quinn was glaring at a boy in line, "How about yours?"

"Great." Quinn echoed, "Rach and I road tripped to California and back. We visited my sister in San Francisco and her fathers in Ohio."

Kurt nodded. He knew how significant it was that Quinn was starting to reconnect with her sister. One day at the very end of his freshman year, he had shown up to Quinn's dorm room with no real plan of what he was going to say, or any real knowledge of why he had gone there.

He was flying home the following day, and he couldn't spend the whole summer at home without telling his father about Blaine. But he didn't know how.

In the end, he ended up crying for nearly an hour in Quinn's room with her on the floor. She just let him lean against her shoulder and soak her shirt through with his tears. She rubbed his back, and told him everything would be alright.

She told him about when she was six and she had decided she was going to become a professional soccer player. Frannie kicked the ball around with her outside for hours until it went over the fence into a neighbor's yard. When their father found out he was furious (and blind drunk) and Frannie lied saying it was her fault. Quinn told him how Frannie always lied and covered for her until she left for college.

She told him about how when she was nineteen she drove for forty three hours from Connecticut to San Francisco over Spring Break her freshman year. She made the trip in two and a half days, driving singlemindedly until she made it to Frannie's apartment. She told him about how she broke down on the sidewalk when she told Frannie she was gay.

She told Kurt to call her if he needed a pep talk before he told his father, or for support after, or for  _anything_.

When he called her past midnight one day, clearly crying, Quinn had her shoes on, and was already halfway out to her car, entirely set on driving to Kurt's house to pick him up before the boy even got any words out. Thankfully, before Quinn managed to stick her keys in the ignition, Kurt had finally gotten out that it went well and his father even cried a bit and told Kurt he would always love him.

Which was great on multiple fronts seeing as Kurt and his father could finally connect on another level, and also because Quinn had no idea really where Kurt lives, and her car really probably couldn't handle the mileage.

"So I heard you and Santana are living together?" Kurt asked Quinn, bringing the blonde out of her staring match with an acne ridden awkward boy in line to kiss Rachel. The boy blushed, and when it was his turn, he hardly managed to peck Rachel quickly on the lips before practically sprinting away.

"Yeah." The older woman laughed, running a hand through her hair, "We're both doing graduate work here, you know she's in law school, and I'm getting a doctorate so it's easy to live together."

"It's easy to live with her?"

"Well she doesn't ever do the dishes or take out the trash, but other than that it's easy." Quinn smiles.

"That sounds more like it."

"Rach basically lives with us too, but you know she's the president of Adams Tower so she's got to keep up appearances." Kurt nodded, he was an RA in Rachel's dorm building.

Rachel finished her shift at the kissing booth, and she laced her fingers with Quinn's. The blonde got a dopey smile on her face when Rachel leant up to whisper something in her girlfriend's ear. Quinn blushed, and followed when Rachel tugged their interlaced hands and led her across the quad towards the dorms.

"See you later, kid." Quinn called over her shoulder to Kurt.

"See ya!" Kurt yelled back.

He didn't think twice when he went and leant his head on Blaine's shoulder. He didn't check to see if anyone was watching before he pressed a quick kiss to his boyfriend's cheek. He wasn't afraid anymore, Quinn taught him that.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This will always be my favorite Faberry AU that I've written and my favorite version of Quinn. I would like to think that given time to grow up and make her own family out of supportive and loving friends she would turn into this kind of confident self assured kind of person.


End file.
